Hang the Moon
by cathedralsinmyheart
Summary: Nearly a year after Stiles and Derek adopt Isaac, they are faced with the question of whether or not to expand their pack. Can they handle everything life is about to throw at them, or will they crumble beneath the weight of everything that has been threatening to tear them apart from the very beginning?
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** Hello everyone! Thank you for sticking through To Build a Home with me, and now the sequel Hang the Moon! I've been really sick (I have a chronic illness) for the past few months and extremely busy with work, but I have A LOT written that I just need to sort through, add to, and send to my amazing beta reader Casey before posting. :) Please favorite, review, share, etc.! Don't forget to subscribe!

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"Can we even handle another child right now?" Derek asked quietly as he held the four-month-old baby in his arms in the center of their kitchen, one of her clawed hands reaching up at him as she let out a series of shrill cries that shook her little body. She then took hold of his thin t-shirt, five small puncture marks soon visible in the navy material. He carefully extracted each finger before enveloping her inside of the yellow blanket so that it wrapped her arms and legs tightly inside, the swaddling sensation calming her tears just enough so that he could talk over them. "I mean, we've only had Isaac a little under a year now and I'm worried that he's not ready for something this big."

"We can't let just anyone have her, Derek," Stiles sighed, running a hand through his hair. He hated that he was too fragile to handle a werebaby that had just been separated from her mother, that Derek, the one who hadn't even _wanted_ children, was the one embracing her as she sobbed and searched frantically for her mother. What was worse was that he could already feel a strong love for the child growing within him, a sense of attachment so strong that he knew he'd never be able to break it even if she was placed somewhere else; he imagined his father on the phone with social services, pacing in his office as he attempted to push the necessary paperwork through the right channels so that she could be _theirs_.

"I could find someone else. Another pack," Derek offered, Stiles able to hear the guilt in his husband's voice and see the worry in the way his wide, focused eyes were watering.

"She needs to be with an alpha," Stiles said, shaking his head. "One that was born a werewolf." Derek wasn't surprised that his husband knew that without someone like him, the child would struggle to gain control of her transformations. That she might not find an anchor, especially after losing both of her biological parents at once. "You know that, so I don't understand why you're just willing to hand her off-"

"I don't want to _hand her off_, Stiles," Derek stated sternly, his hold around the baby tightening at the thought. "I'm just saying that I don't know if we can do this!"

"She needs us, Derek! Just like Isaac needed us. We weren't ready then and we've been doing fine. I mean, who could ever be ready for parenthood?" Stiles rambled, pacing anxiously in front of Derek, hands moving from his hair to his pockets and back again. "Plus, that other pack could be tracking her _right now_. My father knew that after what happened in the preserve last night and that's why he asked _us_."

Isaac, woken by the commotion of Max's not-so-quiet drop-off that morning, appeared in the doorway in his white and red fire truck pajamas, eyes focused intently on Derek holding a baby in a fleece blanket.

"Who's that?" he asked quietly, Balto in one arm, fingers of the other going right for his mouth. He tilted his head as he narrowed his eyes, confusion making his lips twist.

Stiles and Derek paused for a moment and looked at each other, both parents unsure of how to answer. Finally, Derek nodded to Stiles as if giving permission to take the lead. With a deep breath, he complied.

"This is baby Maxine," Stiles smiled as he knelt down to his son's level, looking up at the infant for just a moment before returning his focus to Isaac. "She doesn't have a mommy or daddy anymore so we're inviting her to join our family."

"Where'd they go?" Isaac asked innocently, not even noticing the second part of Stiles' sentence.

"Max's mommy and daddy went to heaven last night, honey."

"Like all our mommies and Papa's daddy?"

"Yes, just like that," Stiles smiled meekly, one hand coming up and resting atop Isaac's shoulder. "So we need to make her feel welcome and loved. She's a little scared because everyone and everything here is so new, just like when we first brought you home."

"She's gonna stay forever?" he asked, fingers still in his mouth.

"We think so," Stiles stated, waiting for Isaac's reaction.

Isaac wasn't sure what to think. He could hear the baby gurgling and making soft sounds, could only see her dark, wispy hair peeking out from beneath the blanket as she wiggled and whined in Papa's arms.

"Why don't I lift you up so you can say hello to your new baby sister?" Stiles asked with a warm smile, Isaac not responding but also not resisting when his daddy picked him up to get a somewhat closer look. Her hazel eyes locked with his the moment Derek peeled the edge of the blanket away from the baby's face, a tiny clawed hand reaching out towards Isaac just as Stiles managed to nonchalantly pull him away.

The doorbell rang and interrupted their family moment, something Stiles was actually thankful for because it meant that maybe Isaac hadn't seen the claws and therefore wouldn't be asking even more of his recent toddler questions that began with, "But why?" for hours on end.

He'd expected to see a person at the door, but a cardboard box with a printed picture of an overtly girly highchair stood in the way. A quick glance towards the curb in front of their house revealed a cherry red mustang with a coffee colored ragtop. Lydia.

"Hello, hello!" she chirped excitedly as she appeared from behind the box in a white linen sundress, a large Coach bag on one arm and bags from Babies R Us hanging from the other.

"Aunt Lyddie!" Isaac cheered, squirming from Stiles' arms and rushing out onto the porch to wrap his arms around her legs.

"What is all of this, exactly?" Stiles asked, suddenly overwhelmed by the eight large plastic bags of toys and baby supplies Lydia had carried into the house.

"Don't play stupid, Stiles. You were always the intelligent one," she smiled as she adjusted Isaac on her hip, the four-year-old grinning as he rested his head on her exposed shoulder. "Oh, and there's a huge box of diapers in the trunk."

"What I meant was, why did you purchase all of this stuff?" He took a deep breath to quell his increasing anxiety, his lungs burning as he switched from inhaling to expelling the air. He had the sudden urge to excuse himself to the bathroom and take a few puffs of medicine, but his right hand slid into his pocket instead and gripped the inhaler as if touching it would be enough to help him breathe easier.

"Because there are things you're going to need today and I know that you can't leave the house with Maxine," she explained, her voice brimming with excitement only so that Isaac didn't sense the argument Stiles was obviously trying to start.

"I could have picked up a few things on my own," he grumbled, trying to discern between the feeling of being overwhelmed and that of jealousy.

"Thank you, Lydia," Derek offered from the two of them as he came closer with Max still wrapped in her blanket. "You know that you didn't have to get us anything."

"So, you guys said, "yes," then?" she finally asked, the eagerness in her eyes nearly sending Stiles over the edge; he'd had the word 'yes' on his mind since his father had called him early that morning, but Derek was the one thing holding them back.

Stiles' scornful eyes tried to meet his husband's, but Derek was already keeping his gaze in line with Lydia's, a small chuckle erupting from him as he looked down at the bundle in his arms. "Yeah," he offered sweetly with a nod, relieving the constriction that had settled in Stiles' chest during the past few hours, the upward curve and genuine content in Derek's lips as they formed a smile reminding him in every way of the man he'd married.


	2. Chapter 2: There Is More Heart Than Ache

**Author's note:**

Finally, chapter 2 (over 6,000 words long) is here! I have been busy with end of the school year stuff and my usual chronic illness, plus I wanted this chapter to be perfect, so it took a few weeks to get it together. For those of you wondering if this is the sequel to _To Build a Home_, it most definitely is. I changed the title from _Rock and Tide_ because I wasn't a fan. Also, Casey did a wonderful job with her critiques (as she always does) and really brought this chunk to its highest potential. Thank you, Casey, for the chapter titles ideas as well! As always, please leave questions, comments, and/or concerns in the comment section. I make it a point to respond to everyone! Kudos and subscribing/favoriting make my day. :) Enjoy!

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John didn't have to be at the Stilinski-Hale house to be wide-awake, his mind too busy replaying the whirlwind that had been the past two and a half weeks to allow him the sleep he knew he needed; between watching Isaac and Max and taking on extra night shifts at the station in the beginning of May to take over for someone on maternity leave, his sleep schedule had been thrown completely off.

That, and he knew Stiles was going to break from the stress soon. John could see it so clearly, the paleness in his son's skin reminding him of the silent stressors that had caused his sleepwalking and night terrors in high school. Despite their then-supernatural cause, he knew that the anxiety was growing serious once again, waiting in the shadows to expose itself during a vulnerable moment. Stiles had always been good at hiding things until he couldn't any longer, and with the stress of everything they'd gone through with Isaac's health and the workload he'd somehow managed to juggle for the last few months, John couldn't help but troubleshoot possible solutions to alleviate the chaos that he'd partially caused by pushing Maxine on them so suddenly.

Derek seemed to be the only one handling things pretty well, but then again, he was good at hiding his emotions too, and John knew that things had been far from easy for him lately with Max unable to anchor, which meant that the rival pack that had killed Maxine's parents had a better chance of locating her.

All of that, plus Isaac's bouts of hives appearing and disappearing day-in and day-out along with his usual wheezing and chesty coughs, was more than enough to stress any father out. John had thought that those were the only things burdening his grandson, but a few days after his fourth birthday, before Max had even come into their lives, he realized just how much was actually brewing beneath the surface, complicating things in a way that he knew no four year old should have to deal with.

The cashier had handed John his grocery receipt and began to scan the next customer's items, Isaac rambling excitedly about his weekend from his seat in the shopping cart. "And the library lady weaded to us on the carpet and then Daddy helpeded me get a library card!" All that John could do was smile as he pushed his grandson and the bags of groceries out through the automatic doors, passing a group of workers taking their smoking break beside the bottle return machines.

"Daddy let me play wif the toys there and we even finded a piwate book!" An elderly lady in front of them stopped to let a few cars pass before she slowly pushed her cart into the parking lot, Isaac still explaining his visit to the library as they waited behind her. "Wif pop-ups…and the ocean m-moves…and…" he continued, slightly winded. Isaac took a deep breath in and coughed to try and get the taste of smoke out of his mouth, eyes widening at the realization of what he was breathing in. "T-the bad guy!" he started to cry, little chest starting to heave as he wheezed loudly. He took hold of the shopping cart handle, elbows locked while he looked around in a panic. "The bad guy! Gampa! He's…here! He's here!"

All that John could focus on was Isaac's wheezing and rapid intakes of air, which was why he rushed the shopping cart to the car with one hand while his fingers from the other fumbled with the unlock button on his key fob. His next thought was to settle the child in his car seat and find his backpack. After prepping the medicine and helping Isaac position the mask of the spacer, he guided him through a few puffs, taking a breath for himself once he was sure Isaac had received enough medication and seemed to be calming down.

"Gampa!" Isaac pleaded breathlessly and wide-eyed when he saw John try to exit the backseat, afraid he was leaving him behind.

"I'm just going to start the car and turn the AC on. It'll help open your lungs up, honey."

"No!" he whined, more tears forming in his eyes, breathing still choppy. "Don't leave! I'm scawed!"

"Hey, tell me more about your pirate book," John suggested as he leaned across to the front of the car and turned the key in the ignition, AC blowing through the vents and filling the hot car as he took the middle seat beside Isaac. "You said that there were pirates in it and you could make the water move?"

"There was…a ship," Isaac explained, still trying to figure out how to talk and manage his breathing. "O-one of the piwates had…a parrot on his…his shoulder. A-and his wings flappeded…if you pulled on the…page. Daddy said we…had to be…careful."

John couldn't help but think of Stiles in that moment, how he was always moving during attacks as a child, squirming and pushing the medicine away even though he knew it would make the tightness in his chest feel better. The only way he and Claudia had ever been able to get him to sit somewhat still was to have him talk between puffs of the inhaler, a means of distracting him that almost always worked.

As he listened to Isaac go on about the book and watched as his breathing became easier, he thought back to fifteen minutes earlier when the child was laughing and calling the stack of coupons he'd spent most of the trip pulling from the little red dispensers in each aisle his 'money'. John had taken a picture on his phone and sent it to Stiles; now, all he could think about was the inevitable phone call he'd be making to explain Isaac's attack.

"Don't feel good," Isaac whined miserably before letting out a series of tight coughs.

"Gampa's just gonna put the groceries in the trunk really quick and then we'll head home and see if you need a treatment, okay?" he asked softly.

"I want Daddy!" Isaac began to cry, tears streaming down his reddened face.

"I know, honey. I'm gonna call him right now," John assured him. "Why don't you tell Balto about your trip to the library while I get the bags in the car?"

"No!" he continued to cry, little hands balling into fists. "I wanna go home! Right now!"

"Just another minute or so and we'll head home," John promised as he quickly filled the trunk with the small amount of bags from the basket of their shopping cart

"Gampa!" Isaac continued to cry. "I'm scawed!"he yelled even louder, trying to curl into himself as he held tightly on to Balto. "The bad guy's gonna...get me! He's gonna get me!"

"Hey, there's no bad guy, honey," John assured his grandson as he closed the trunk and came around to Isaac's door, one hand reaching for Isaac's shoulder as he pushed his hair out of his face with the other. "And even if there was, Gampa would protect you."

"He's here! He's here!" the child cried loudly again, knuckles white from his grip on his stuffed wolf. "He's gonna take me away!" That's when John noticed that Isaac was shaking, that he was so hyperfocused looking through each of the car windows with his wide eyes that he was barely able to control the rate of his breathing again. It took John a moment to put the pieces together, but when he finally did, he found himself recalling the two nights he'd responded to calls at the Leahy house: How Isaac's eyes and breathing had been exactly the same as that moment, how their living room had reeked of cigarette smoke. His grandson's shaking, he now knew, wasn't from the medicine.

"He can't hurt you anymore, Isaac," John promised softly as he lifted the child from his seat and squeezed him tight between the cars. "There's no bad guy here, I promise. Shh, just relax. Breathe, honey."

Isaac didn't say anything in response, but his breathing began to slow as John kissed his head and rubbed his back, the two separating only when the late May sun began to burn on their skin and the heat seemed to rise straight from the dark pavement.

They'd exited the parking lot and merged onto the main road towards the house, Isaac keeping a tight hold on Balto even after John had carried them through the front door of the Stilinski-Hale house.

"When's his next appointment?" he'd asked Stiles in the kitchen over coffee once Isaac was home and napping through a treatment on the couch.

"We're seeing the allergist for the first time on Friday," Stiles said, rubbing the back of his head with a sigh, shaking his head at the thought that Isaac had had yet another attack.

"I meant Dr. Galler."

Stiles lifted his gaze and narrowed his eyes at his father; John had mentioned the asthma, but not the panic that had struck Isaac the moment he'd inhaled the cigarette smoke.

"It started as an anxiety attack," he explained, careful to keep his tone level so as not to stress his son out any further.

"He knows smoke isn't good for him, so I can see why he might panic," Stiles reasoned.

"It was more than that," John added, looking away for a moment as he tried to find the right words. "Stiles, I think that the smell of the smoke triggered something in his memory." His hands were moving as he spoke, his own anxiety mounting at the thought of what he was about to reveal to his son. "I didn't realize what was really going on until I'd given him the medicine and tried putting the groceries in the trunk. He was crying and it seemed like he was just worked up from his attack but then he was hyperventilating and hyperfocusing. The kid was so scared," he sighed. "It took me nearly twenty minutes to calm him down and ease him back into his carseat."

"What do you mean?" Stiles prompted, though it was obvious that he wasn't sure he was ready to hear what his father was trying to say.

John took a deep breath. "Has he talked about a 'bad guy' before?"

"Yeah, but we just attribute it to his PTSD; there's no one actually coming after him. Sean's in jail and-"

"Stiles, the night I found Isaac the Leahy house was littered with ashtrays," John interrupted.

"What?" He could feel his heart starting to race, felt a wave of anxiety rush over him as he fought to catch his breath.

"They smoked."

Stiles wasn't sure if what he was feeling was anger or heartbreak or both. He knew how hard it was for Isaac to breathe without smoke filling the air around him and couldn't bear to let the related information that had surfaced from the formal police reports and Dr. Galler's visits fill his mind.

"CPS hadn't picked up on it before and our visit that night wasn't exactly planned," John sighed.

Stiles was up and out of his chair in seconds, pacing the kitchen as he rubbed his face and tried to keep himself from tearing up. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?" he asked as he stopped in front of his father, a few tears finally falling.

"I thought it was in the reports that you'd read. I…I assumed you knew. I didn't even really think about it being a trigger until Isaac started having an attack today," John promised as he stood up and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry."

Stiles shook his head and pulled away.

"I had no idea," John admitted, afraid to move closer. "Stiles, I swear."

"It's not that," he sniffled. "I just…feel so guilty," Stiles sniffled between wheezes as he leaned forward on the kitchen table and slammed one palm against the wood. His chest was heaving just like Isaac's had been nearly an hour earlier, sobs mixing with painful inhales of air. "B-because I can't change all of the awful things that happened to him in that house. A-and I thought that maybe his breathing would be better by now, that we'd be able to put the nebulizer away for a little while and there'd be some kind of relief period, but he just keeps getting attacks and hives and I…I…"

"I know," John whispered as he got up and pulled his son into his arms, rocking him back and forth, careful to give him room to breathe freely. "I know, Stiles."

"We've been trying so hard," he sobbed into his father's flannel shirt, his body shaking, legs weak as he leaned in close. "We don't know what else to do." There was desperation in his voice, the kind that reminded John of himself the night he'd almost lost Stiles at thirteen.

"You've got that appointment coming up, and you're doing everything your mother and I would have done for you, Stiles. That's all that you can do right now."

"It's not enough, though," he sniffled, another sob growing within him at the realization. "None of it feels like it's ever gonna be enough!"

"Trust me, it is," John whispered, hating that that was all he could offer to his son, that that was the truth they'd have to accept for the time being.

He turned to his other side on the bed and sighed as he let the memory go, the pillow cool against his cheek, neon green glare of the numbers on his alarm clock illuminating a school picture of Isaac smiling happily on his nightstand. Until nearly a year ago, a picture of Stiles from preschool had been in that exact wooden frame, precisely angled so that his clock could allow him to make out his son's features in the dark. How many nights after Claudia passed had he stared at that frame and wondered how he would do it all alone? The ADHD, the asthma, the gaping hole she had left in their lives? There'd been so many moments _after_ _Claudia _where John had felt exactly like Stiles, and yet, it seemed as though he had learned nothing, and he couldn't help but think that his decision regarding Maxine, while the right one, was still, somehow, also wrong at the exact same time.

He sighed again and turned away from the clock and the picture, eyes staring straight into the darkness until he couldn't keep them open any longer.

x

"Take her back!" Isaac blubbered through his tears that same night, hands pressed over his ears as Maxine screamed to her little heart's content down the hall; it was three in the morning during the turn of her first full moon in the Stilinski-Hale house and Derek was finding it extremely difficult to get the infant to anchor.

"Hey, do you remember what it was like those first few nights after Papa and I brought you home?" Stiles asked softly as he cuddled Isaac in his twin bed, rubbing his exposed arm with just the tips of his fingers to try and relax him.

"I didn't cry like Max!" he grumbled as his tears slowed, hands still against his ears.

"Yes, you did. Maybe not as loudly, because you were having a lot of trouble breathing, but Papa and I were up with you for many nights trying to get you to feel safe in your new home."

"She doesn't like it here!" Isaac said, pulling his hands from his ears and turning to his father to talk. "All she does is whine and scweam!"

"Well, you know how you sometimes get attacks in the middle of the night?" Stiles asked, Isaac nodding against the pillow. "This is kind of like that for Max. She doesn't feel well right now and she can't help it."

"'Cause she's a wolf?"

"Yes, just like Papa."

"But Papa doesn't scweam all the time when there's a full moon!"

"That's because Papa's parents taught him how to control himself. Max is too little to learn it on her own so she needs Papa to help."

"Does she need med'cine?" Isaac asked, still somewhat confused by the idea. Stiles was impressed that their son was trying to figure out something that might help his little sister despite all of the comments he'd just let out.

"No, baby. It's not like that," he smiled softly.

"Does it hurt?"

"The crying?"

"The claws." So he _had_ seen them.

"Maybe a little, but she'll be okay," Stiles admitted, not wanting to let Isaac in on every detail; there would be time for that later, when they'd actually had a decent night's sleep and could figure out what he did and didn't need to know.

"We could give her Baby Tylenol!" Isaac said excitedly as he pulled his covers away and ran to open the top drawer of his dresser where all of his medication was stored. "For her claws!"

"That's really sweet, honey," Stiles smiled as he left the bed and picked Isaac up, balancing him on one hip. "But she really just needs a lot of love right now."

"Just like me after I has an attack?" Isaac asked.

"Just like that," he assured him before placing a kiss on his son's forehead.

"Can you wead me a story?" Isaac asked with a yawn as he leaned into his father's embrace and placed his head on his shoulder.

"Let me guess…the 'new baby' book Gampa got you?" Stiles laughed tiredly, knowing how obsessive Isaac usually got with every new book he received.

"Mmhm," he hummed in response, Stiles seating them in the rocking chair and pulling _The New Baby_ by Mercer Mayer from the basket beside them.

"Dad said, "We have a new baby and she's coming home today," Stiles read once he opened the book, Isaac's attention, though wavering due to exhaustion, focused intently on the Little Critters. Five pages later, Isaac's eyes were closed and a soft, slightly wheezy snore could be heard with each of his exhales. Stiles closed the book with the hand that wasn't holding Isaac in his lap and let it fall quietly into the book basket, glad he'd been able to turn Isaac's frustration around and finally get him to relax. Leaning back in the chair, he adjusted Isaac gently and closed his own eyes, hoping that Max could hold out for the few hours left before the sun rose so that they could all get a little bit of sleep.

x

"Max and I had a rough night," Derek sighed tiredly as he carried the infant into the kitchen Saturday morning, one hand rubbing her back as she sucked on a pastel bubble teether.

"The soothing techniques Deaton suggested didn't help?" Stiles asked, Derek lifting the left side of his shirt up a bit to reveal thin but deep gashes still in the process of healing across his torso. "I guess not," Stiles added, cringing and breathing in through his teeth as he imagined the sting of his husband's wounds.

"I don't know what her biological parents were doing to try and anchor her, so I really struggled. She has an appointment with Deaton for her shots today so hopefully he can give me some new ideas."

"How long did it take you to anchor?" Stiles asked as he mixed the rice cereal he'd prepared for Max in a small bowl.

"Three months. My parents were both alphas, though, and they had generations-worth of knowledge to help them. I'm starting to sense that Max did have an anchor, since most werebabies usually find one by four months."

"And now she has to find a new one?"

"Yeah," Derek sighed as he tried to get Max into her high chair, the infant starting to fuss as he went to buckle her in.

"What do most babies anchor to?" Stiles asked as he walked over, stirring some apple pieces into the rice cereal with a small spoon.

Derek looked up for just a moment, lips taut and eyes full of sadness before he went back to securing Max in her chair.

"Oh," Stiles said, giving a quick nod of understanding as his husband took Max's breakfast from him.

"Yeah. I don't know everything about werebabies and anchoring, but I'm going to guess that that's going to make this transition a lot harder than we thought," Derek explained as he pushed the spoon against Max's tiny lips, a piercing cry escaping as she turned her head away, claws coming out as she began to melt down in her high chair. Derek used his free hand to place her teether by her mouth but she swatted it away, nearly catching Derek's arm as she did so.

"Max!" Isaac screeched as he covered his ears and squeezed his eyes closed, too preoccupied to notice that Stiles had just placed off-the-griddle banana pancakes in front of him. "No more scweamin'!"

Stiles found himself wishing more than anything that he could gather Max in his arms and rock her through her tears. He swore he could feel her emotional pain in each agonizing wail, her confusion and fear evident in the way her tiny face would scrunch and redden in anguish. He thought back to two days ago, when Derek had tried to run into the office in the afternoon to grab some paperwork to complete at home, Stiles so exasperated toward his failed attempts at calming her that he was on the verge of tears.

"She hasn't stopped crying since you left!" Stiles had panicked as he bounced Max in his arms, his husband having just walked in the door from a half day of work. They were nearing the end of the two-week mark with their daughter, the school year finally winding down to half-days full of classroom cleanup and playground time. Isaac would be finishing school in a few days, too, the summer nearly upon them.

"I changed her diaper and put her down to nap. I tried to feed her but she keeps turning her head away from the bottle and she won't take any puree." Stiles' cheeks were tinted red, and Derek could detect his rapid heart rate and the slight pull in his lungs.

"Here," Derek said as he slowly brought his briefcase to the floor and motioned for Stiles to hand the infant over. Not knowing what else to do, Stiles complied, jaw dropping when she instantly nestled herself beneath Derek's neck, tears turning into little hiccups as she calmed.

"You're too cold," Derek whispered as he cradled her head with his hand to keep her against him, other arm supporting her weight from below.

"What?"

"She was craving warmth."

"I have her in a sleeper! In June! How could she be-"

"She needs more than the average infant."

"But," Stiles started, confused. "How? Did you?"

"You're forgetting that I grew up in a house with three-generations-worth of werewolves."

"You could barely hold Isaac's hand when we first adopted him because you were so nervous and now you're telling me you have experience with babies?"

"Werebabies, yeah," Derek stated nonchalantly.

"You literally made this infant comatose just by holding her," Stiles pointed out, shock evident in his voice.

"I don't know…I guess it's just instinct or something," Derek shrugged.

Stiles opened his mouth to speak but found that he had no words. Instead, he watched as Derek rocked from foot to foot with Max against his suited chest, his head craned downwards so that it was closer to her. She sighed in content, a sudden silence filling the house for the first time since Derek had left around noon.

Stiles wasn't sure why, but suddenly, he felt like crying. Like letting out just a few tears and crawling on to the couch with a blanket, the TV static in the background so that he could finally get some sleep. Exhaustion and frustration aside, though, something else was brewing within Stiles that afternoon. Something that forced him to look away from their daughter happily coiled against his husband and lock his jaw to keep the tears from coming.

"You should take some medicine. I can hear your wheezing," Derek finally said as he lifted his head.

"I'm fine," Stiles assured his husband, waving a hand as he turned and went for the basement to get started on laundry.

"I'll set up a treatment for you."

Stiles was already halfway down the stairs, though, the padding of his feet on each wooden board signaling not that he hadn't heard Derek's remark, but that he was ignoring it. With a heavy sigh, Derek turned and trudged up the stairs with Max, unwilling to argue with Stiles because he, too, was just too damn exhausted.

"Max!" Isaac yelled over the commotion in the kitchen, pulling Stiles' attention back into the present. "No more! Stop!"

"She's crying because she's in a lot of pain, Isaac," Stiles explained softly as he lifted the child into his arms to bring him upstairs to change and escape the infant's tantrum; the more he listened to her cries, the more he wished he could soothe her like he'd been able to for Isaac in the beginning.

"But if no one hurted her why's she in pain?" he asked as they reached the top, one hand going for his mouth as he tried to think through what was happening.

"Max is upset because she doesn't know where her mommy and daddy went and she misses them."

"Papa didn't telled her that they went to heaven?"

"He did, baby. Many times. But Max is too little to understand. That's why she's always so sad." Stiles entered Isaac's room and let him down before rummaging through the laundry basket on the rocking chair for clean clothes. "She's crying out for them because she's looking for them."

Isaac looked at Stiles for a moment before adding, "Max has a missing piece, too?"

"Yes. And she needs us to help her through it, which is why Papa and I need you to be the best big brother that you can be, okay?"

"Like Gampa said?" Isaac asked, thinking back to their conversation last week when he'd brought over the Little Critter's book _The New Baby_. "'Cause she needs someone to help keep her safe and show her new things?"

"Yes, just like that," Stiles stated with a smile, picking out socks, a pair of shorts, and Isaac's favorite wolf t-shirt, a late birthday gift from Uncle Scott and Aunt Allison.

"But I'm not like Max and Papa," Isaac frowned before attempting to pull his pajama shirt up and over his head.

"You don't have to be a wolf to be strong, Isaac. Remember when you were sick a few weeks ago, when you wanted to help Papa fix the deck?"

"You tolded me I was strong 'cause I'm growin' up and getting braver," the four-year-old smiled as Stiles helped him pull the wolf shirt down over his head, the socks in his hands falling to the floor.

"Exactly, which means you're the perfect protector for Max."

"What's a producter?" Isaac asked as he pushed his arms through the holes.

"Protector," Stiles corrected with a small laugh. "It's a person who keeps people safe from bad guys and bad things in the world."

"Are you a protector?"

"Yes, baby. Papa and Gampa are, too, because we all look out for each other."

"Gampa's a policeman, though," Isaac thought for a moment as he sat down to put on the shorts that Stiles had handed him. "He says it's his job makin' people safe."

"That's true, it is his job. But he also does it because he wants to. Gampa has a big heart, just like you and Papa."

"But not Max," Isaac stated definitively as he wiggled into his shorts. "'Cause she's too little."

"Of course she has a heart," Stiles countered, though he was careful to keep his tone light. "Max can feel and sense a lot of things, Ize."

"Onwy 'cause she's a wolf."

"No, she can sense love because she's a person, honey," he corrected. "Just like Papa. One day Max is going to be a big girl, just like you're a big boy, and she's still going to need you just like she does right now."

Stiles bent down to pick up the pair of socks that had slipped from his hand, his head suddenly spinning, one hand steadying his weight on the carpet as he sunk into a sitting position. He took a slow breath and then another, his heart racing in his chest.

"Daddy?"

"I'm okay, baby," he lied as he tried to take deeper, even breaths to quell the dizziness that was keeping him from getting up. He could feel his heart pounding even more quickly than before, the throbbing extending to his hands and feet. Despite the control he did have over his now labored breathing, the woozy feeling continued to grow worse, rushing through him as waves of hot and cold, keeping him from being able to stand.

"You're wheezin'," Isaac said, kneeling beside Stiles, one hand falling onto his shoulder. "Do you need your 'haler?"

Stiles shook his head and closed his eyes, willing the feeling to pass so that he could finish getting Isaac ready for the day.

"Papa!" Isaac called out, the words reaching Stiles in a muffled tone. He tried to protest, but he couldn't. He knew he was breathing, but somehow the air just wasn't reaching his lungs. The arm supporting his weight began to feel numb, finally caving as Isaac continued to yell for Derek; Stiles gripped the coarse carpeting in his hand to keep his elbow locked and arm steady.

"You're white as a ghost," he heard Derek remark worriedly sometime later, Stiles unsure if it had been seconds or minutes since Isaac hard first started yelling. He could feel the coolness of a damp washcloth against the back of his neck and one of Derek's strong hands holding him upright. In opening his eyes, he saw that he was still in Isaac's room, sitting up on the pale blue carpet, his breaths coming in short, painful pants.

"Just got a little...dizzy," Stiles tried, words garbled as he leaned his head and body against a kneeling Derek.

"Your heart sounds like it's ready to beat straight out of your chest."

"I gotted Daddy's red 'haler," Isaac explained proudly, his own breaths hurried from having run to find it.

"Don't need it," Stiles said, shaking his head, his right hand flat on his chest as if he were about to recite the Pledge of Allegiance; Derek didn't need super-senses to know that his husband's heart had palpitated at least twice in the last minute or so. "I'm okay. No need for dramatics."

But Derek could sense the breathlessness in his husband's voice, could feel the way his heartbeat was irregular if he listened closely enough. His worried eyes met with Stiles', and for the first time, he read his mind directly: _Don't scare Ize._

"Where's Max?"

"In her bouncer. Ize, can you be the best big brother ever and go check on her? Maybe read her a book or put on a movie?"

The four-year-old handed the inhaler over to his father with a smile and hurried down the stairs, excited to participate in some big brother activities.

"I'm okay, really," Stiles promised as he put his weight on his knees, and then his feet, Derek helping him rise from the carpet. "Just haven't eaten yet. Didn't sleep much."

"Something tells me that that isn't the whole story," Derek said, his hand going for Stiles' against his chest.

"I don't want to argue about this," Stiles said quietly, sadness in his voice as he pulled his hand, and Derek's, away from his heart.

For a moment, Derek thought that his husband might start crying, his skin still stark-white in color, eyes drooping with exhaustion, the circles beneath them deep and dark. He supported most of Stiles' weight as he helped him over to Isaac's bed to sit down, his ragged exhales a sign that he was still just as dizzy as he'd been on the carpet.

"Will you be okay for a minute while I go and grab a juice box?" Derek asked, afraid to move the conversation in its usual direction. Stiles just closed his eyes and nodded, lips parting as he took in slow, even breaths. Derek sighed and took a few steps toward the hall, stopping in the doorway and turning to Stiles for just a brief moment. "This has happened, before, hasn't it?" he whispered, unsure if he wanted to know the answer; he could still hear his husband's heart working hard.

Stiles nodded again and held up two fingers, his eyes opening but focusing downward at the floor. He rubbed the left side of his chest again and took one deep breath, almost as if he was doing it to rid himself of an uncomfortable sensation rather than fix the feeling of air hunger. To that, Derek just bit his bottom lip and gave a short nod before going to the kitchen for the juice box he'd promised.

X

That Monday night, Isaac's tiny hands wrapped around the bars of Max's wooden crib as he peeked in, heels rising and weight shifting to the balls of his feet so that he could get closer to her. "Hi, Maxy," he whispered with a smile, the baby's whimpering lessening at his words. "Don't cry," he soothed, one hand reaching in to take hers. "It's otay. I don't have a mama anymore either, but Daddy and Papa and Gampa are the bestest family ever."

Stiles kept his head on the pillow and smiled to himself as he listened to Isaac's gentle voice come through the baby monitor, wanting to wake Derek so that he could hear, but also knowing he needed the sleep.

Derek, who had been up for over thirty hours straight until he flopped onto the bed less than four hours ago, still in dress pants and a collared shirt. He'd managed to get Max into an uninterrupted four hours of sleep, give her two feedings, spend six hours in the office, and make it home in time to get her down for what was now a record-breaking five hours. To Stiles, that made him seem more superhuman than anything else.

And the way he handled her? It was adorable, if that was even a word he could use to describe it. Just watching her curl against him, itty bitty fingers clawing at his shirt for comfort, was enough to melt Stiles' heart. Well, until the jealousy flooded in and he couldn't get the thought that maybe he'd never have that kind of relationship with Max out of his head.

It had been so much easier with Isaac in the beginning, the toddler so sick that all Stiles could do to comfort him in the nights before their appointment with Dr. Marmon was cradle his little body semi-upright to help him breathe better. And then there'd been the night when they'd had to pull the nebulizer out and Derek had been too scared, too unknowledgeable, to help. Boy, how things had changed in the last ten months. Isaac's asthma was somewhat under control now, thankfully, all because they'd given in and let the new allergist Derek had found, Dr. Oslo, do extensive bloodwork and pulmonary function tests. The child had actually cooperated for the PFTs in the lab, but Stiles knew from the bloodwork experience that the first round of allergy shots that were to come in the next week would probably prove to be a very, very different story. Needles, it seemed, were one thing that Isaac just couldn't get completely over. (Not that he blamed him.)

"Daddy and Papa has missing pieces, too," Isaac whispered, Max letting out little coos instead of her usual sobs. "Just like us. So they know how it feels when we're sad 'cause we want Mama. Oh, and Aunt Lyddie taked me to my Mother's Day Tea at school so I wasn't all alone. She's really nice. Daddy says she's my Godmother, which means she's one of my protectors, just like I'm your protector. Maybe she can be your Godmother, too."

For the first night in nearly three weeks, Stiles realized, the house was a wonderful kind of quiet, a much needed peace finally flowing through it. Isaac's soft words and Max's little gurgles continued to come through the monitor like a lullaby, the four-year-old's stories about Papa's Camaro and the police doggies forcing Stiles to grin as he closed his eyes and sunk deep into his pillow.


End file.
